


How Quickly the Glamour Fades

by vargrimar



Series: The Chambers and the Valves [19]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Autistic Sherlock Holmes, Banter, Canon Compliant, Companionable Snark, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Light Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Post-Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Pre-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 04, Sherlock's Mind Palace, in which sherlock learns he has a sister, look out mycroft! sherlock is on a warpath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vargrimar/pseuds/vargrimar
Summary: “Yeah. Yeah, all right,” says John. “Let’s scare the bleeding hell out of him.”The fluttering swell in Sherlock’s chest feels strong enough to displace his ribs.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: The Chambers and the Valves [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640680
Comments: 1
Kudos: 46





	How Quickly the Glamour Fades

**Author's Note:**

> ( you made a deal  
> and now it seems you have to offer up  
> but will it ever be enough? )

“You have a sister.”

Sherlock’s eyes snap open. “Sorry, I have a _what_?”

John sits across from him in his chair with the Union Jack, a marked tension canting his shoulders. He leans forward with his elbows propped on his knees, hands clasped together, frown set. The indicative little furrow through John’s brow implies the severe gravity of the situation, and yet Sherlock can’t make sense of four little words.

“A sister,” says John. “You have a sister. You have a bloody sister and she—” He draws a short breath, unlacing his fingers to rub a palm over his mouth. “Well, let’s just say I could recognise more than a few family traits. Tell me, have you lot always been this dramatic, or is it more of a recent development?”

Thoroughly set off-kilter, Sherlock shuts his eyes again and flaps his hands outward in an attempt to banish his mind palace courtroom mid-session. All of the players disperse and dematerialise amongst the wooden seats, leaving small arched placards in their wake. The evidence still lies upon the centre podium (the blacklight-shown _MISS ME?_ written on the note had not, in fact, been in Mary’s hand), and he inserts a mental note in the form of a knife at its corner to further research and analyse the ink’s ingredients.

When he returns to Baker Street’s sitting room, John has leant back into his chair, one leg crooked to rest his ankle upon the opposite knee. He wears a stern countenance, but there is something different to it, something more. Grief does not linger by his laugh lines or bracket his mouth; torpor does not tug at his extremities or press at either shoulder. This is not the John from several weeks ago with a cracked and splintering composure, weighted by the indelible pressure of despondence and despair.

No, he thinks. No, this John is spirited. This John is _lively_.

This John has seen something that has put him on edge.

“You’re serious,” says Sherlock, absorbing all the physical tells. “You’re—you’re actually serious. How can you be serious? That doesn’t make any sense. How—”

“She’s my therapist,” says John. “Or at least she pretended to be. She stuffed the real one in the airing cupboard, apparently. That was a fun phone call. It’s been her this entire time. She suspected—no, she _knew_ —exactly when and where I was going to look for another therapist, and exactly who I would choose. Just like you. Imagine that, eh? Anticipating everything a person does before they even do it.” His fingers tap absent patterns upon the armrests. “Definitely a family trait.”

Sherlock rewinds to the cocaine-hazed afternoon when Mrs Hudson had bound him with the handcuffs from the salad drawer and shoved him into the boot of her Aston Martin. Upon arrival, the house had been clean, sparse, modern; nothing of import. But the woman there, the therapist—what had she looked like? He recalls fair hair, glasses, a pale complexion. He also recalls her clothes being too large for her frame and a taller than average height.

Boring. Unremarkable. Utterly ordinary.

“Your therapist,” he repeats, turning the scene over in his head.

“Yeah, my sodding therapist. It was quite the exciting session, really. Shame you missed it. Secret sisters, mad disguises. All sorts of manipulative stuff. Not the sort of thing you’d expect when you pop in for a chat.” John clears his throat. “It did get cut a bit short, though. Getting shot by your therapist tends to do that.”

“What?” Something like panic roils in his chest despite the blatant, unequivocal evidence that John is alive and well. “You were shot? She shot you?”

“With a tranquilliser, yeah. Must’ve been out for a good hour. Maybe two. Told me she’s Sherlock’s secret sister then pulled a gun and shot a bloody dart in me. So not only did she predict where I’d look for a therapist and who I’d choose, but she put on a show, too. Unveiled everything bit by bit, not unlike somebody else I know.” He laughs, flighty and a bit exasperated. “Always with the dramatics. That’s just—God, that’s just the default state for a Holmes, isn’t it? Drama queens, the whole lot of you. Christ, you’d think I’d be used to it by now.”

Sherlock folds himself further into his chair and crosses his legs. Bringing his hands together in front of his mouth, he stares at the carpet by John’s shoes and delves through the halls of his mind palace to locate old memories.

He remembers his childhood well enough, but not all of it had been filed correctly; there are sizable gaps due to his own lack of management. Mycroft is a persistent presence through it all, as are Mum and Dad and Redbeard on occasion, but there is a distinct lack of other sibling, which is a more troubling than he would care to admit.

“I have a sister,” he says, and it still sounds strange to his ears, foreign and displaced.

“Yeah, apparently you have. She said her name is Eurus. It’s—”

“—Greek,” Sherlock interjects. “It’s Greek. _Euros_ , one of the Anemoi, god of the east wind. He was thought to bring rain. Storms.”

“Ah. So that’s where this whole ‘east wind’ thing comes from, then.” John crooks his arm and rests his cheek on his palm. “A bit unnerving. Not that getting shot wasn’t unnerving, mind, but the east wind, the force that lays waste to the unworthy, it’s supposed to be her. Sort of explains Mycroft’s little story, hm?”

“ _Mycroft_.” Sherlock spits the name like a curse. “What a rubbish big brother. I assume she mentioned him?”

“A bit, yeah. Only in passing. She mentioned you more.”

He looks up, catching John’s gaze. “Tell me. Tell me all of it. Leave nothing out. _Nothing_. Do you understand? Give me as many details you can possibly remember.”

“Well, it’s not as if we had an hour-long chat about secret siblings and sinister plots,” says John. “She was impersonating a therapist, so it was—well, it was like any other session, you know? We talked about how things were going, how I was. About… coping. Work. We talked about Rosie. Talked about you, Mycroft. Normal stuff. It was all fine ‘til she mentioned ‘the other one’ at the end. That’s what clued me in.”

Sherlock frowns. “‘The other one’?”

“Yeah. It was something I said when you were in hospital after all the—” John swallows. He glances to the mantel and clears his throat with a stuttery cough. “Right. Well, Mycroft and his spooks came and raided the flat that evening. He didn’t know what caused your self-destructive episode and he was determined to find out. We were talking in the middle of it, and—and he’d said something, previously, when he rang me the night you left Baker Street. He said being your brother made no difference, that it didn’t the last time and it wouldn’t with you. I thought it a bit weird then, the wording, but it gave me a feeling, and there he was, so I asked.”

“And he deflected,” says Sherlock. He leans forward, excitement jumping through his veins like currents through circuitry. “He deflected and tried to make you think he misspoke or you misunderstood because that’s what Mycroft does—he’s a manipulative bastard and he does whatever he thinks is best for you despite evidence to the contrary.”

“Ah, another Holmes family trait. We’re making quite a list here.”

“Oh, shut up.” Sherlock heaves a vexed sigh. “Right. So, he deflected, lied, anything to throw you off, but that wasn’t enough because Mycroft is a terrible liar when caught unprepared. Doesn’t take a genius to read body language, so you saw straight through him.”

“Well, sort of. I said, ‘There’s another one, isn’t there?’ And he said, ‘No,’ all serious and foreboding, but there was a—a pause before he said it. You know, that ‘oh, I’ve been caught out’ kind of pause, like he couldn’t believe I’d figured it out.” John runs palm over the rest of his face with a tired sort of aggravation. “Didn’t have much time to press him, though. Missus Hudson came up after that and things went in an entirely different direction. The DVD and all.”

“Another one. A sister. A _sister_.” Sherlock presses his hands together, fingertips tapping, manic energy flowing right down to the soles of his feet. “He would hide away a sister and keep me in the dark, but _why_? For what purpose?”

“I’ve no idea. His comment does seem a bit ominous, though, doesn’t it? Implying there was a last time where sibling status didn’t matter. That can’t be a good thing.”

Mulling this over, Sherlock hops to his feet and begins to pace round the sitting room. He makes a total of two circuits as he sorts through more childhood memories, opening and closing mind palace doors like manila case folders on Lestrade’s desk. Lots of Christmases, birthdays, outings, holidays spent by the lakeshore. The various figures of his younger years come as no particular surprise. Mum and Dad. Mycroft. Redbeard. Friendly neighbours. His parents’ friends. Still nothing whatsoever about a sister.

Frustrating. Need more data.

“Right. What else?” he says, coming to a stop in front of his chair. “You said it was fine until she mentioned the other one. Then what happened?”

John eases more comfortably into the cushion, hands splayed upon the armrests. “Well, everything started to unravel after that. At first she tried to suggest she’d heard ‘the other one’ from you, but that wasn’t right. I knew it wasn’t and I told her as much because she met you just the once, and that was when Missus Hudson stuffed you in the boot of her car and drove you there. That’s when Eurus said no, she’d met you before—that night you left Baker Street, high off your arse. You got chips with her. She said a mutual friend helped her get in touch with Culverton. He gave her ‘Faith’s original note’, whatever that was.”

Instantly, something sparks up the line of Sherlock’s spine.

Faith’s note, he thinks. Faith’s note. Eurus had—

Oh. _Oh_.

He snaps rigid with the revelation and his eyes dart toward the mantelpiece. Nestled beside the framed bat and beetles and the old magnifying glasses and the other charming mantel-curios is the note he’d received well over a month ago in the midst of a late evening with Faith Smith. It lies folded upon the knife-marked wood with its misshapen memories in the form of inky scribbles. The data poured upon the page had been obvious to him that evening, even while high, but the hidden piece, the missing information, the _MISS ME?_ in taunting capitals revealed only under the pale purple of a UV torch—that had been a belated discovery.

Oh, he has been so bloody _slow_.

“Faith,” Sherlock breathes. “She was Faith. Eurus impersonated Faith. That explains it. That explains everything. The roots, the tan, the note, why Faith never remembered.”

“So not the drugs, then,” says John. “No mind doors opening, nothing profound. Just your secret sister having you on.”

“No, it was far more than having me on. Far, _far_ more. She’s the one who gave me the case in the first place.”

Pivoting promptly on his heel, Sherlock steps over to the mantelpiece and swipes the paper folded up by the magnifying glasses. He holds it out to John, expectant, and when John casts him a questioning look, he gives it an encouraging shake.

With a raised eyebrow, John accepts the note and flips it open. “Ah. So this was your evidence, was it? This is why you were so convinced.”

“Yes. After everything, I started to think I’d hallucinated it. Faith, the note, the entire encounter. It wouldn’t have accounted for all the things I knew, but I had no other explanation.” He retreats to the kitchen, pops open a drawer by the sink, and grabs the blacklight torch from within. “Not until yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” John cranes to look over the back of his armchair. “What happened yesterday?”

Sherlock reenters the sitting room. Crossing the carpet and rounding the table, he draws the beige curtains at each window. The glow of the late afternoon sun shutters into narrow, golden slants pooling down beneath the sills. With the room shrouded in moderate shadow, Sherlock returns to John’s side and holds the torch over top the note.

“This is what happened yesterday,” he says, and flicks it on.

The beam of ultraviolet light illuminates the worn paper in a lambent wash of indigo. In the very centre of the page, the words _MISS ME?_ glow a brilliant neon amongst the pen-written scribbles, an echo of Moriarty’s mocking shade.

“Oh my God,” John breathes.

“I rediscovered the note after some prospective clients left the flat,” he says. “It was the proof I’d been missing. My first thought was Culverton. He’s wealthy, powerful. That garners a lot of influence. I thought perhaps he might have been in league with someone close to Moriarty, someone I’d somehow missed. I didn’t like the idea, but it was plausible. Wrong track, though. Wrong track entirely.”

John glances up from the page, a firm pleat in his brow. “No. It can’t be. You don’t think he’s—?”

“No. Moriarty is dead. That is irrefutable fact. He blew his brains out.” Sherlock switches off the torch and sets it on the end table. “But despite him being dead, someone aired footage of him all over London to make me think he wasn’t. Awful lot of trouble to revive a dead man, don’t you think? Nothing seemed to come of it then, but now it’s well over a year later and we’ve just found a note with those exact words. Connection? Maybe. Not improbable. I can’t know for certain, not until we know more, too many variables, but the note—that’s what it implies. Or at least attempts to imply. Copycats do exist, so a false lead isn’t an impossible leap. But to have one appear after all this time?”

Sherlock starts pacing another circuit, thumb and forefinger scrubbing together; the comfort of repetitive physical stimulus.

As he walks, he allows himself to dip back into the muzzy memory, replete with rain and chill and the salty tang of chips. The scene pauses with Faith’s note held in his hands, the tang of extensive spices on its surface and Moriarty’s words scrawled underneath in secret, The Woman Who Is Not Faith poised upon the weary client’s pedestal in the sitting room’s centre.

“Faith came round to Baker Street that evening,” he says. “She told me her father intended to kill someone three years ago, but she couldn’t remember who. His confession unsettled her; all the evidence was there, plain in her mannerisms, her clothes. The note was merely supplemental data. She was alone, upset, guilt-ridden. Suicidal.” He brushes the rebellious twinge within his ribcage aside. “I took the gun she had in her handbag and threw it in the Thames.”

John’s eyes follow him about the darkened room. “Right, but that wasn’t Faith. We know that now.”

“No, it wasn’t Faith,” he says, rounding past the chairs for the third time. “That’s the point. It wasn’t Faith at all; just an exceptionally skilled actor. Everything about Faith’s persona was expertly crafted. Eurus knew the deductions I would make based on her appearance, so every last detail became a deliberate choice: her skirt, her handbag, her walking cane, her coat or lack thereof. Even the way she favoured her sleeve. The note was perhaps the only genuine thing she brought, but even that wasn’t without tampering as you’ve already seen.”

“That’s insane,” says John, and there is that familiar tone of awe, the tone Sherlock has tried so very hard not to miss. “So, what, she anticipated your deductions ahead of time and dressed accordingly? But you were off your head. You could’ve—I don’t know, misinterpreted something. How could she have possibly done all that?”

“She knows how people work. And not only does she know how people work, she knows how _I_ work. She knows _me_. How I am, how I function, how I think. I interacted with her twice and each time I saw precisely what she wanted me to see.”

“Yeah, but that’s not really unique to her, now, is it? She’s a Holmes. As much as you might not want to admit it, you and Mycroft do share—”

“Please do not finish that sentence.”

John sighs. “Sherlock—”

“ _Don’t_. Whilst Mycroft hiding things doesn’t come as any great surprise, it has now become apparent that he’s been hiding the existence of another family member for what I can only assume must have been my entire life or at the very least something incredibly close to it, so I would be most appreciative if you’d refrain from making further comparisons.”

Sherlock comes to an abrupt stop by the closest window and yanks the curtains open. Afternoon sunshine filters between the drapes in an open wedge, bright and warm despite the autumnal chill encroaching beyond the glass.

“Eurus purposefully sought me out whilst my perception was altered,” he says, easing his palms together beneath his chin. “She came to the flat as Faith Smith. She made me _believe_ she was Faith Smith and gave me a case entirely on that pretence. I received information I only could have acquired from Faith, things only she could have known, and Eurus knew I’d confront Culverton. She knew I’d bring in his daughter and ask her about the night she’d been to Baker Street—which, of course, she hadn’t, thus painting me as a drug-addled liar. Why? To further undermine my credence? To see what I could do when things went wrong?”

“Well, she did get the note from Culverton,” says John. “D’you think it could have been orchestrated? The two of them working together?”

“They might have done in some small capacity, but it was clear she didn’t care for him as a colleague or a peer. If she hadn’t wanted him to face repercussions for his recreational murders, he would have been much more difficult to expose. Her sole intent was to get me involved. Once that was accomplished, she simply withdrew and watched.” He draws a deep inhale and walks another circuit round the room. “Right. What else happened? What else did she say? There must have been more. The chips, the evening, the note. Then what? The gun?”

“Erm, no. Not yet. She—well, she started removing her disguise then. Took off her glasses, popped a brown contact out of her eye. She must’ve been wearing a wig or something, though if she was I didn’t get the chance to see it come off. After she revealed she’d already got to you, she…”

John lapses into sudden silence. His gaze drops down to stare at Faith’s elongated script, evasive, and a muscle jumps in his jaw. He works down a thick swallow, fingers pressing crinkles into the paper.

There’s something familiar about how John folds in, about how his body behaves. Sherlock is well-versed in its diction after all these years and there is rather little of John he cannot read; the man is as well-known to Sherlock as a beloved storybook to a child. The translation takes a moment, image-to-word and word-to-context, but the deep forehead crease, the thin line of his mouth, sudden tension in his shoulders, the marked avoidance of eye contact—Sherlock has seen it all before, and right in this very sitting room.

Reticence, he thinks.

And then: No, not just reticence. _Shame_.

An unsettling weight cements itself atop his stomach. The excitement that has been snapping through his veins ratchets up a notch and tips over its blade-thin edge into something tight and twisty and wrong. It drops, leaden, into his extremities, into the too-tight hollow of his chest, and he lets it stop him in the middle of the carpet, the texture of its fibres soft and plush under his bare arches.

“John?” he ventures.

John’s eyes, pitched a deep sloe by the single set of still-drawn curtains, refuse to lift from the note.

“I had no bloody idea, Sherlock,” he says, and his voice has dropped into a lower register, something hushed and quiet. “No idea at all. None. Not even a clue.”

“What are you talking about?” Sherlock sounds far calmer than he feels. “John? What happened?”

“She… tucked her hair back,” says John, carefully, “and behind her ear was the plastic daisy, the one I’d had that one morning. I don’t know how she got it. I’d brought it back with me; I remember taking it out of my jacket and putting it with Rosie’s things. I knew something was wrong, I knew the moment I saw it, but then she changed her voice, and—that was it. I recognised it. Her. From the bus.”

Epiphany arrives like the sting of a whip: vicious, hot, staggering. The clamour in Sherlock’s head surges into riotous overwhelm and the rest of the room seems to fall away, paling into background noise, disconnected and unimportant.

“The texting,” he says, threadbare.

John folds the note shut and averts his gaze to the fireplace. One hand tightens and curls on his lap, knuckles wrought pallid with the strain. The same muscle in his jaw gives another flex.

“Yeah,” says John. “Yeah, the texting.”

Oh.

Oh, he can’t—

He can’t examine that.

Prying his hands apart, Sherlock lets them drop into fists at his sides and digs the pad of each thumb into the side of each forefinger. He holds them there, _hard_ , willing the input to override the train of thought his brain is desperately trying to grapple itself toward because he knows entertaining such assumptions and hypotheticals in any capacity will be ultimately useless because they aren’t facts at all; they’re scenes, scenarios, inane imaginings, and nothing so compromising could ever be conducive to any sort of proper brainwork.

 _Focus_ , says Mycroft, now reappeared in the courtroom’s vacant centre. _You haven’t got the time to dwell on trifling implications. John was_ attacked _, for heaven’s sake. If I truly have been keeping a sister from you, the faux relationship she manufactured with your good doctor is going to be the very least of your worries._

Yes. Yes, he must be logical about this. He must remain unobjective. Divorce the sentiment, the misplaced envy, the low thrum of panic. Now is neither the time nor the place. Only facts matter. Everything else is irrelevant.

 _Exactly._ Mycroft offers a tight smile before withdrawing a pocket watch from his waistcoat and affording it a brief glance. _Well, then. Let’s go over what you know, shall we?_

Instantly, the surrounding courtroom’s sloping architecture and open seating alchemises into the cold, impersonal quarters of an office. Heavy security reads in the alloys of the walls, the metals of the reinforced door; the rich mahogany desk is the only shock of colour amongst the monochrome.

 _Go on_ , says Mycroft, leaning against the desk. _Talk me through._

A full breath stretches Sherlock’s lungs.

Fact one: Several months ago, John had a text-based affair with a woman who smiled at him on the bus. It was short-term, done on a whim. Fleeting. Nothing physical. John had been ashamed; his body’s language brooked no room for argument. Texting might have been all it was, but it still picked at John like fingernails scraping over a fresh scab: tender, painful, a constant and reminding blemish.

 _That last bit is inference, not fact_ , chides Mycroft. _Try again._

Sherlock grits his teeth, pools his attention into the pressures in his hands, and shoves the comment aside.

Fact one, reprise: Several months ago, John had a text-based affair with a woman who smiled at him on the bus. It was short-term. Nothing physical happened. In the aftermath, John showed symptoms of shame.

 _Better_ , comes the cavalier reply.

Fact two: Three months ago, Faith Smith arrived at Baker Street. She brought the note that now sits in John’s lap, marked with an invisible posthumous message reminiscent of Jim Moriarty. With both the note and her personal account, she offered a case Sherlock could use to solve the one he’d been given by Mary.

Fact three: Two and a half months ago, John decided to see a new therapist. Due to his work schedule, his daughter, his location, and his need for change, options were understandably limited; out of four men and one woman, he chose the latter. The first session put the case with Culverton Smith into proper motion.

Fact four: Earlier this afternoon, John’s therapist revealed herself as Eurus Holmes. This very same woman claimed to have been Faith Smith as well as the woman who smiled at John on the bus. Three separate people, three separate personalities—all over the course of several months.

 _Ah, so we’ve got a timeline_ , says Mycroft. _Very good. And what might we deduce from that?_

These were obviously premeditated events. They were purposeful. They had intent. John was deliberately sought out by this woman, this… Eurus. He was targeted, manipulated, pulled directly into her plans.

_As were you. But I don’t think you need me to tell you that, do you, brother mine?_

No, Sherlock thinks with a tetchy scowl. No, I really don’t.

Mycroft gives a curt nod as he folds both hands over his stomach. _So, it was subterfuge. Both you and Doctor Watson were intentionally targeted by a woman who claims to be our sister. Do we know why?_

If she really is our secret sister, thinks Sherlock, nails burrowed into the heartlines of his palms, then she’d want to draw attention. She’d want to introduce herself. That’s what this has been. That is why she used John. She chose to reveal herself to him because she knew he’d come to me and I’d take notice.

_A fair assessment, but that doesn’t fully answer the question. There was deception involved—layers of it. She used John to get under your skin. If her motives were truly innocent, there are far more conventional methods to come and say hello._

Yes, but when have we ever been conventional? he doesn’t ask. You haven’t got a leg to stand on. You’ve been hiding our bloody _sister_ , for God’s sake.

 _Yes, well_. Mycroft tilts his head in minor concession. _It was for your own good._

A coiling tension tightens Sherlock’s jaw.

I’ll be the judge of that, he doesn’t say.

An arched eyebrow. _Will you?_

Oh, most certainly. You have answers of your own concerning Eurus. I know you have. The east wind, the force that purges the unworthy—did you think you were being clever?

_We all think we’re being clever, Sherlock. You are no exception._

Neither are you.

The office starts to snap and splinter. Metallic sheets mesh into softened sunshine, and then Mycroft’s pale complexion melds into the scene as it drains away, blanching until all that remains is a stark, wood-panelled corridor. Sherlock stands in its centre, alone, the endless stretch of rooms running parallel at either side. In the distance, he glimpses the lone red blur of an Irish Setter darting between the memory doors, but he stays still and lets the press of his fingers against his palms become a persistent, grounding force.

Sherlock yanks himself out of his mind palace just in time to see John regarding him with an expression of acute unease.

“Sherlock?” he asks, tone tentative and testing.

“Are you okay?” The words jump from Sherlock’s throat before he can stop them. It’s normal, it’s natural; in the aftermath, this is what they do.

“Am I—?” John blinks. “Hang on. I just told you the girl I’d been texting was your sister. The secret sister you knew absolutely nothing about until just this afternoon. You’ve been standing there for two minutes in complete silence rather looking like that was the worst possible thing I could have told you, and you want to know if _I’m_ okay?”

“Yes? Yes, of course I want to know if you’re okay. She shot you, didn’t she? Well, only with a tranquilliser,” Sherlock amends, tipping his head in acknowledgement, “but still. There was a gun involved. Granted, not exactly an uncommon occurrence for either of us, but you did say it was unsettling.”

John licks his lip. “So that’s it, then. We’re not going to talk about this.”

“Talk about what?”

“Talk about _this_. The texting and—and your sister.”

Sherlock frowns. “No. Why would we?”

“Because—” John’s hand clenches on his thigh and he draws a deep, steadying breath. “Right. Never mind. Forget it. Yeah, I’m okay. Or as okay as I can be after getting tranquillised by a madwoman who disguised herself as my therapist, anyway. Which is only marginally okay, just for the record. What about you? Are you okay?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer. Instead, sweeps across the room in a whirl of frenetic haste and snatches the note from John. He turns it over once or twice, cataloguing the faint indents of the pen, the fresh crinkles from John’s fingers, how the sunbleach colours the page in a pale, pallid yellow. Then, approaching the mantelpiece, he refolds it and smacks it down amongst the other curios and scattered articles from the post.

John appears unfazed by all of this. “So, what’s happening, then? What are we doing? Going after Mycroft?”

Sherlock withdraws the pocketknife from its appointed place amidst the scarred wood grain. He tosses it into an upward arc, swipes it at the grip mid-air, and then promptly stabs the edge of Faith’s note.

“Going after Mycroft,” he affirms, savouring the movement.

“You do realise that’s going to be difficult,” says John.

“No more than usual. Being the British government won’t protect him from this. I’ve broken into his house before.”

“You’ve broken into—no, you know what? Never mind. That shouldn’t surprise me. What’s a little house breaking between siblings.” John sighs, working the heel of his palm against one eye. “Look, I meant it in the information sense. It’s Mycroft we’re talking about. Do you really think he’s going to be forthcoming about all this?”

“Not particularly, no, but I haven’t got much of a choice. Asking our parents won’t tell me anything I don’t already know and I’m not about to involve them.” Sherlock aligns his fingertips once more, tucking them together under his chin. “I’ve got a feeling I’m not the only one who’s been kept in the dark.”

“You’re saying your parents don’t know.”

“Well, they must know to some extent, obviously, though I’d wager their knowledge stops sometime before adolescence.”

“But Mycroft’s doesn’t.”

“So it would appear.”

“And now you’re going to break into his house and—do what, exactly? Confront him?”

Sherlock sighs against his hands. “If I’m to understand why we were targeted or why Eurus went to these extraordinary lengths, I’ll need information. Mycroft’s comments imply he clearly knows more than he’s letting on, which gives us a lead, even if that lead does happen to be my insufferable brother. And now that we’ve got a lead, the only logical course of action is to follow it through. That is what we’d do in any other situation, and that is what I intend to do now.”

“Yeah, okay, I get that,” says John, raising a placating hand. “I’m not against it, all right? I’d like to know what the bloody hell’s going on as well. But you can’t think he’s going to just _tell_ you. I mean… it’s Mycroft. You know him. He keeps secrets for a living. It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a little chat to get him to come clean. The only reason I discovered anything is because he slipped up when you were—well, you know. He was frustrated. Worried. Maybe a bit of both. He wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes. “Your point?”

“My point is you’re not going to get anything out of him,” says John. “Not unless he’s in the middle of dealing with some dire situation or something like he was before. I used to think he was this pompous unflappable prick, but no. Turns out he’s quite flappable when family’s involved.”

“Rather generous descriptor, that,” says Sherlock. “Right. So, you want to recreate the situation. Something that would evoke a reaction beyond the ordinary.”

“Well, I’d like to recreate it a bit, yeah, but not exactly. If we could manage something similar, he might be a bit more forthcoming with all this secret sister stuff. Not that that’s an invitation to start using again, mind,” John adds with a pointed gaze. “We’re not going to recreate everything about that night. I don’t want to see you anywhere near a needle.”

“I don’t plan on going anywhere near needles for this,” says Sherlock. And then, after a moment: “Well, not me specifically.”

“Right, because a statement like that’s not worrying in any way whatsoever.” John breathes a deep, penitent sigh. “Christ. Why is it that I’m suddenly the lead on exploiting Mycroft? You’re the one who’s known him your whole life. Surely you’ve got ideas.”

“Five so far,” says Sherlock, “though their effectiveness is debatable and two require hospitalisation.”

“You are not putting yourself back in hospital just to manipulate your brother.”

“Never said I was.”

“Not putting him in hospital, either. As appealing as the idea is, I’d really rather not have to face the entire British government because one of their representatives got his lights punched out.”

“Do give me some credit, John. If Mycroft were to end up in hospital, you would never be implicated.”

“Another statement that is not at all worrisome.” John tips his head back against the seat cushion, fingers tapping on the upholstery. “This is mad, you know. Absolutely mad, coming up with ideas on how to blackmail your brother.”

Sherlock flaps a hand in dismissal. “Not blackmail. Blackmail is more Mycroft’s area.”

“Right. Of course. I almost forgot who we were dealing with for a moment. But even if you don’t want to call it blackmail, it’s still manipulation. We’ve still got to get the upper hand, convince him to tell us everything about this secret sister who’s apparently been round for years and years without anybody knowing.” John sets his jaw, draws a steady breath. “It’s going to take a lot more than frustrated worry, isn’t it? Something tells me he still wouldn’t have said anything even if I’d had the chance to press him that night. The situation wasn’t right. It’s got to be something worse.”

“Worse than me being in hospital with double kidney failure,” muses Sherlock, tapping his fingertips together. “Well, I shouldn’t think we’ll be _too_ hard pressed to find such a scenario.”

“Oh, shut it. I meant—well, rather than you being the one in danger, it ought to be him instead. That would be stressful enough, wouldn’t it? Paralysing terror and all. Fear does a number on people.”

“Fear is extremely powerful, yes,” agrees Sherlock, reminded of Baskerville and its manufactured horrors. “If used in the correct way, it can expose or conceal a great deal. Priorities, weaknesses, knowledge. Not a bad advantage.”

John nods absently. “If only it were as simple as breaking into his house and giving him a good scare, eh? Would make things a lot easier.”

Something starts to take shape, nebulous and hazy at the edges. Sherlock stands perfectly still as the image gains sharpness, definition. In his mind’s eye, a panicked Mycroft charges down a darkened corridor, terror spurring him from the clutches of a shadowy pursuer—the therapist, perhaps, or someone different altogether.

Oh, John, he thinks. John Watson, you marvellous, _marvellous_ man.

Now alight with the workings of a promising new idea, Sherlock steps over to his chair and snatches his mobile off the end table. He thumbs through the contacts, and after wading through most of his Irregulars, he comes across two names of note and starts a group text with them both.

John, oblivious of his own unintentional cleverness as always, appraises him with a wary eye. “What are you doing?”

“Texting,” he replies, tapping through a message concerning availability.

“Yes, I know you’re texting. I’ve got eyes. That’s not what I meant.” The weight of John’s gaze prickles at his nape. “You’ve got that look again. I know that look.”

Sherlock pauses to glance up at the mirror over the mantel. “What look?”

“The ‘I’ve just got a brilliant idea but it’s probably dangerous so I’m going to be all mysterious about it’ look.”

Déjà vu strums at the back of Sherlock’s brain. His reflection’s pale eyes stare back, the corner of its mouth showing the slightest of smiles. The man standing in the glass doesn’t look quite as tired or haggard as he ought to, though he does still look rather gaunt. The curse of a jackrabbit metabolism and a poor eating schedule, he supposes. That, and a _very_ lengthy detox.

“This is hardly being mysterious,” he says, turning back to his mobile.

“It certainly is when you’re not letting on. Care to share with the rest of us?”

Sherlock shrugs. “We were both fooled twice. I think Mycroft is long overdue for a little sibling trickery, don’t you?”

“‘Sibling trickery’,” repeats John, incredulous. “Is that what we’re calling all this? The disguises, the tranquillisers, you nearly dying to a serial killer. All normal stuff. Just some harmless pranks between family, yeah?”

“Mycroft is not Eurus,” he says. “You said yourself I knew nothing of this sister until just this afternoon. Whoever Eurus is, she’s got her own agenda. I fully intend to figure out what that is, but we need information first, and Mycroft is where we will get that information. As much as I detest my brother and his incessant meddling, I can assure you I won’t have him harmed.” He chances a glance at John. “Well, not irrevocably. Depends on what a little fear will do.”

“Right. Not irrevocably. Okay.” John considers this for a moment, palm rubbing over his mouth. “I mean… yeah, God knows I wouldn’t mind getting the bastard back for all his inconvenient abductions over the years. Or for the fact that he knew you weren’t dead. Or for hiding all this nonsense, which let a psychopath manipulate the both of us and almost kill you.”

“Yes, there’s that,” says Sherlock. “Quite the list, hm?”

“You could say that, yeah,” says John.

“There are plenty more transgressions.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“A veritable mountain of them,” he adds.

“I’d be more surprised if there wasn’t.”

“Well, it _is_ Mycroft we’re talking about.”

A moment of silence encases the sitting room. Sherlock continues composing his message to his pair of chosen Irregulars, outlining the timeframes, costumes, and other miscellaneous requirements. His throat is a bit tight and his chest constricts with a sharp curl of discomfort, but that’s the waiting game. He’s waiting for the inevitable, waiting for John, because Sherlock _knows_ John, has known him for years, and despite all the secret sisters and furtive textings and indescribable losses and near death experiences and the inevitable danger that’s sure to be ahead, Sherlock also knows it is only a matter of time.

It is a matter of time because wherever Sherlock Holmes goes, Doctor John Watson follows. The proof is in the past, the present; it is in the brilliant, hazel-flecked gleam of hurricane cobalt and the impatient drum of blunt fingertips on weathered upholstery.

This is what we are drawn to, thinks Sherlock. This is what we’ve got: adrenaline, mysteries, murders. This is who we _are_.

“Yeah. Yeah, all right,” says John. “Let’s scare the bleeding hell out of him.”

The fluttering swell in Sherlock’s chest feels strong enough to displace his ribs.

“Very well,” he says, stoicism belying the brimming thrill. “Shall we get started, then?”

“Oh, don’t give me that. You’ve already started, haven’t you?”

“I have,” he says, a smile stealing in.

“Right, see, that’s what I was talking about. That’s the look right there. Brilliant idea, already started, probably dangerous, but didn’t tell anybody about it so it shouldn’t be a surprise if a criminal pops in.” John presses his cheek into his palm, recrossing his legs. “So, what exactly did you have in mind for this supposedly harmless sibling trickery, hm? You _have_ got something in mind, yeah?”

“Oh, something very good, indeed,” says Sherlock as he taps out the end of the text. “I’m extrapolating the rest of it based on already acquired data, of course, but it all starts with an old childhood fear.”

“A childhood fear?” asks John. “Really? _Mycroft?_ ”

“Bit hard to believe, isn’t it? The stone-faced visage of the British government having fears. Rather incongruous with the image he presents. Yes, he’s got a childhood fear, and we’re going to use it to our advantage.”

Sherlock gives the finished message a once over. Satisfied, he presses send and slips his mobile into his trouser pocket. If his conjectures are correct and the respective recipients are receptive to his offer, within the next hour he will have the start of a very elaborate scheme that will knock a certain government representative down a few pegs.

Oh, this is going to be _fun_.

“Well?” John’s brow arches with expectance, with interest. “Are you going to just stand there or are you going to tell me about what’s going on in that mad brain of yours?”

Sherlock glances up at his reflection, its smile a mischievous mirror.

“For a start,” he says, “Mycroft never was very fond of clowns.”


End file.
